WheresWaldo

Lezyne has two new units that kind of slot in between the high end Garmins and lower end units that have no mapping features. DCRainmaker posted a quick video and promised a review of some kind in the future:

znomit

48 hr battery.
Can load maps from my phone.
200$

Goodbye garmin!

lightbulbjim

I'd get one for the battery life alone if I didn't have a perfectly functional Super GPS already!

srestrepo

I'm excited for these also. My venerable super GPS will likely go to a friend who just started cycling. It has served me well, on group rides as well as my commutes in any weather new England has grown way.

I'm not brand loyal but I didn't enjoy my Garmin when I had it, the lezyne has been wonderful to use and very reliable.

lightbulbjim

johnny99

Great specs, but great software is a lot harder than great hardware. I'd like to see some long term reviews of this thing.

WheresWaldo

Well, Garmin's track record with software is a bit less than stellar. I still use an older Garmin 810 and find it hard to see the rational for removing that form factor from Garmins current lineup. If the Mega C is even close with regard to software/firmware to the newer Garmin units this is a good thing. I am still going to wait until there are more reviews and not just product announcements or unboxing videos.

biketampa

01 CAt Man Do

Interesting product. Seems if you want turn by turn navigation you have to use the online app on your phone. They also don't tell you what they mean by turn by turn navigation. Does it give voice or some sort of audible prompt or just an arrow or something on the screen?? Not that this applies to everyone but if the connection is made by BT that might mean you can't use some sort of BT speaker or headphones ( at the same time ) if you wish to use something like that. I do like that you can create routes right from your phone. That is a big, big plus..however, that's using the Lezyne app and or the Lezyne website which of course requires you be online. If your phone's on and accessing data it's also using it's battery. Nice that the Lezyne has great battery life but unfortunately most phone's don't.

Not sure if the Lezyne setups would include being able to download maps from somewhere like OSM or another source of OSM like RWGPS . The video mentioned that you don't get road names on the map?? If that's true I'm not sure I'd be willing to navigate somewhere using the Lezyne's. If I'm making a turn I'd like to know the name of the road I'm turning onto. I'm used to getting more navigational information just by using one of my better phone apps.

lightbulbjim

Assuming it's somewhat like the existing units (I have a Super GPS for comparison) then the phone app will generate the directions (basically a TCX file) and then transfer the file to the head unit via bluetooth. When you get a turn prompt the head unit will beep and display a prompt like "turn right onto Foo St in 80 metres". If you miss a turn then the head unit will automatically ask the phone for rerouting directions and you continue on your way.

Historically the phone app has required Internet connectivity to fetch the directions. In the last week or two the app has been updated to support the new units, and now you can download map regions and generate routes within those regions while offline. This works even for my Super GPS.

My understanding is that what the new units bring to the table is that they also display a map image on the screen as you ride. In the app there's an option to send your downloaded map to your GPS if you have one of the new units. Presumably this is then used as the underlay image.

There's no option to download third-party maps that I can find. My Super GPS is accessible as a USB mass storage device, so if I had one of the new ones I'd certainly try copying some official maps over and then plug it in and inspect the files, assuming they're visible. It might be possible to reverse engineer support for third-party maps.

If you're interested then you can download the phone app and play around with it. You don't need a head unit connected to download maps, generate routes etc.

biketampa

01 CAt Man Do

Thanks, that's all very helpful. It would be nice though if it were possible to transfer an OSM segment to the head unit since OSM also include a lot of MUP's and mountain bike trails. I can already do this with my Locus app but unfortunately my phone doesn't have the storage space to download a big map. At some point I'm likely going to have to bite the bullet and get me a phone with an SD card slot.

Anyway, if REI gets these in stock I might have to take a look at one of these.

srestrepo

i'm pretty much sold on getting a new one. likely still not the color screen though. there's a lady that is on some of my group rides that expressed interest in the head unit but was saying her budget was limited. i dont care if this is true or not, i'll just sell it to her and upgrade to the latest iteration.

Lezyne has been nothing short of wonderful from a customer service perspective in my opinion. when i had trouble with my heart rate monitor that came with my head unit a few months out of warranty, they forwarded me another one quickly and advised me to discard the old one free of charge. whenever i've had questions or quirks (i bought the unit as soon as they released it) they were able to send me a fix and/or recommend an alternative.

my expectations remain just as high for this new unit. i've navigated with it. to places i was unfamiliar with and it hasn't let down. again, not brand loyal but if it works, it works.

i'll post a review as soon as i get one, if people are interested.

pdlamb

Please, get one, try it out, and report back soon! Need to know before Christmas (when it's cold here!).

ksryder

It sounds like Lezyne's GPS units have improved since they were first released? Happy to hear it. I'm glad to see some affordable competition to Garmin.

I bought the Super GPS when it first came out -- Year 9 version. I bought it because it had the longest battery life -- something like 22 hours.

On the plus side, the battery life was as advertised, and it never froze up or failed to record a ride.

On the minus side, I had all kinds of problems with trying to keep my sensors paired, and I got inconsistent and hard-to-find information from Lezyne on that front. Ultimately I found a document buried in some dark corner of their website that basically said "yeah so we know this unit is supposed to pair to ANT+ and Bluetooth sensors but it doesn't actually work great with a bunch of sensors so you should use our sensors instead".

Also it had some weird bug where the mileage would just randomly increase by several miles -- I'd be riding along at 30 miles and suddenly the mileage would jump to 87 miles or something. This always happened when I rode past construction sites for some reason?

Lezyne's customer service was initially responsive, asked me to send them some data from my computer. But eventually they just said "you'll have to wait for a firmware update". The last firmware update for the Year 9 devices was December 2016, it didn't fix the issue, and they stopped responding to my customer support emails.

So basically instead of fixing the problems with the Year 9 devices, I was an unpaid beta tester (actually I paid them) and they released the new and improved Year 10 devices.

In conclusion, I bought a Wahoo Bolt and I haven't had a single problem with it.

alarsen77

I like the look of these new units. They seem to have a more rounded design which I like. It stinks that I just got my Super GPS back in February. I am curious to see if the screen layouts changed much. It seems that from the few screenshots I can see that they improved the layouts and made the user interface better. But not sure about that.

unterhausen

I was interested until someone posted that turn by turn requires use of a phone. That would explain the battery life. Mostly.

WheresWaldo

@unterhausen My understanding is similar to @lightbulbjim in that the routing is done on the phone but it can be done offline (no Phone Data if you prepare your maps while having access to WiFi). These new units let you download and store locally on your phone sections of maps, maybe a whole county, maybe a state, maybe more. Personally I don't find that a real deal breaker.

Still I am going to wait on some real reviews, not unboxings or talking heads regurgitating PR releases.

lightbulbjim

Doubt it's going to happen anytime soon, sorry. My Super GPS does everything I want it to.

Just bear in mind that there are different use profiles. For instance, I've tinkered with sensors and they worked just fine, but I don't bother using them day to day. Same with navigation and routes. As far as I can tell nearly everything works (on my Y10 unit) but someone who heavily uses other features might find problems there. Same with any device.

The two outstanding bugs that I've noticed on my Y10 Super GPS are:

1. Automatic timezone selection only works if the GPS is in bluetooth range of my phone when I switch it on.
2. The unit can get confused if you try and follow a route which passes over itself, eg multiple passes down a particular stretch of road. This is one of those "feature not a bug" things, because the same logic allows you to skip part of your planned route and pick it up later automatically.

Anyway, all I'm trying to say is YMMV.

Guideme

I have just got a Lezyne Super GPS Enhanced. Working my way through the set up and the display shows the field numbers ( speed, distance etc) as small numbers down the right side of the screen. Difficult to see when riding. The manual however shows large numbers down the centre of the screen. Nothing I can find in the manual to correct this. Any ideas out there to fix it?

lightbulbjim

You might have an old firmware version. Instructions for updating are here: Lezyne - Engineered Design - Products - GPS

biketampa

WheresWaldo

Manual and quick start guide are posted on Lezyne's website
Manual (English) - https://www.lezyne.com/downloads/Mega...R1-English.pdf
Quick Start - https://www.lezyne.com/downloads/7205...START-R0A1.pdf

Still no real reviews

biketampa

nothing yet. I assume dcrainmaker will do a review at some point. hopefully soon. I'm still disappointed that you cannot send multiple routers/course to the device and being able to select routes from the device itself. I get if you need turn by turn directions you need that connection to the phone but often the breadcrumb trail is all I need.

prj71

No. You can also use Ride with GPS to create a route with turn by turn navigation and then export it as a TCX file. Then you upload the TCX file to the Lezyne GPS root website. From there it is available on your phone to send to the GPS via bluetooth.

https://ridewithgps.com/

Audible beep with arrows, road names and direction you have turn. Pops up about 300 ft. before the turn.